- Trump is a "loser president," GOP Rep.
Adam Kinzinger has said. - Kinzinger questioned why Trump's supporters still "worship a loser" despite his defeat last year.
- It's "high time" Republican lawmakers admit "that Joe Biden was elected president," he said.
Donald Trump is a "loser president," Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois has said, after the former president held a rally during which he continued to insist he won last year's presidential election.
Trump on Saturday evening held a rally in Ohio where he continued to baselessly claim his defeat was illegitimate.
Republican Sen. Mitt Romney compared the rally to professional wrestling, saying it was "entertaining, but it's not real."
Rep. Kinzinger, who voted to impeach Trump over the Capitol riot on January 6, told CNN that he "hoped" Romney was right but added: "There's a lot of people ... that really truly believe that Donald Trump was elected president again."
He said: "What you saw yesterday was a recycling of those old talking points. It was a rally of a loser president.
"He's the first president to lose reelection in decades. I don't know why these folks would go there and in essence ogle at and in many cases just short of worship a loser, but they did."
Kinzinger also referenced a conspiracy theory circulating among Trump supporters that he will be reinstated as president later this summer, saying: "There are enough people, frighteningly, that believe he's going to be president in August."
Kinzinger also said it was "high time" for Republican colleagues - many of whom have refused to reject Trump's baseless election claims - to recognise Joe Biden as the legitimate president.
He has frequently criticized Republican colleagues for their failure to state that Trump's election claims were baseless.
He said of Trump in May that Republican voters "had their patriotism abused by somebody that simply wants to use it to maintain power."